IDC

In the oncoming war of the wearable device, it’s usability, not their power or aesthetics, that will drive the market. While Samsung releases three new smartwatch devices this season with full-functioning operating systems and Sony releases a sports band that’s just about as simple as a wearable device can be, it’s clear that we’ll be seeing a full spectrum. But what drives the successful machine? Besides advertising dollars, that is.

If there were still any doubt about the exponential growth of smartphones, these latest figures from the IDC should dispel those. Reaching a new milestone, the International Data Corporation revealed that smartphone shipments world wide have reached an astounding 1,004.2 million in 2013.

Research firm IDC has announced that it expects to see PC shipments decline by double digits in 2013. The exact percentage of decline that IDC is predicting for the PC market overall is 10.1%. That is a bit more than the firms previous prediction of 9.7% decline for the PC market overall.

This week the folks at IDC have released their quarterly tracking numbers for shipments of smartphones as listed by operating system. Alongside these numbers, IDC shows an smartphone average selling price (ASP) chart which shows a relatively clear trend: downward. Though many publishers today have chosen to follow the "Phablet" headline opportunity in this most recent report, this pricing trend is set to have one whole heck of a lot bigger an impact on the market in coming years.

IDC has released its third-quarter numbers on the tablet industry, and in them we see good news for four of the top five tablet vendors, with all but Apple seeing growth -- in a couple cases, substantial growth -- year-on-year. For Samsung in particular, the market share numbers compared to the same quarter last year rose by 8-percent, taking the Korean company above the 20-percent mark.

It would appear that we've got a bit of a rarity going on this quarter for phone and smartphone shipments across the world according to the IDC. This device tracker seeks out shipment numbers, you should keep in mind, not smartphone and non-smartphone sales, so you're not seeing the end result, just the part of the equation that's out before the devices are sold to end consumers. The rarity we're seeing this quarter is the drop in only one device vendor out of the whole tracked bunch - that's Nokia - though it would appear that this brand does remain in close contention with the rest of the top brands worldwide for smartphone and non-smartphones (the one total category) combined.

The PC shipment numbers have rolled in for the third quarter of the year, tallying up the number of units shipped globally over the last quarter. Not surprisingly given the gradually declining nature of the market, shipment numbers again decreased, but not as much as analysts had expected. The numbers vary a bit depending on whose research you're looking at, but according to firm IDC, shipments hit 81.6 million units.

Research firm IDC has published first metrics for the worldwide smart connected device market. That market includes PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The overall market is expected to grow 27.8% in 2013 and that growth is predicted to be driven by tablet and smartphone shipments.

Since it's been over a quarter since Apple released their last iPad, IDC worldwide tablet shipment numbers have shown not just that Android tablets have been gaining popularity, but that the whole market has slipped significantly. With a near 10% (9.7% to be precise) in worldwide tablet shipments this 2Q of 2013 compared to the first quarter of this year, it would seem at first that interest wanes in this segment as a whole. Compared to this same quarter one year ago, on the other hand, there's been growth - rather impressive growth, at that.